Elbląg is one of the oldest cities in the province.[2] Its history dates back to 1237, when the Teutonic Order constructed their fortified stronghold on the banks of a nearby river. The castle subsequently served as the official seat of the Teutonic Order Masters.

After World War II the city again became part of Poland. The war casualties were catastrophic, especially the severe destruction of the Old Town district, one of the grandest and most beautiful in East Prussia.

Today, Elbląg has over 120,000 inhabitants and is a "vibrant city with an attractive tourist base".[2] It serves as an academic and financial center and among its numerous historic monuments is the Market Gate from 1309 and St. Nicholas Cathedral. Elbląg is also renowned for its archaeological sites, museums and the largestbrewery in the country.[5]

Elbląg is the Polishderivative of the German name Elbing, which was assigned by the Teutonic Knights to the citadel and subsequent town placed by them in 1237 next to the river. The purpose of the citadel was to prevent the Old Prussian settlement of Truso from being reoccupied, as the German crusaders were at war with the pagan Prussians. The citadel was named after the river, itself of uncertain etymology. One traditional etymology connects it to the name of the Helveconae, a Germanic tribe mentioned in Ancient Greek and Latin sources, but the etymology or language of the tribal name remains unknown. The oldest known mention of the river or town Elbing is in the form Ylfing in the report of a sailor Wulfstan from the end of the 9th century, in The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan which was written in Anglo-Saxon in King Alfred's reign.

Elbing was almost completely destroyed at the end of World War II. The city became the Polish Elbląg after the war, when the area was ceded to Poland under border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference. Parts of the inner city were gradually rebuilt, and around 2000 rebuilding was begun in a style emulating the previous architecture, in many cases over the same foundations and utilizing old bricks and portions of the same walls. The western suburbs of the old city have not been reconstructed.

The modern city adjoins about half the length of the river between Lake Drużno and Elbląg Bay (Zatoka Elbląska, an arm of the Vistula Lagoon), and spreads out on both banks, though mainly on the eastern side. To the east is the Elbląg Upland (Wysoczyzna Elbląska), a dome pushed up by glacial compression, 390 km2 in diameter and 200 m (656.17 ft) high at its greatest elevation.[8] It gives the appearance of ridges and parkland.

Views to the west show flat fields extending to the horizon; this part of the Vistula Delta (Żuławy Wiślane) is used mainly for agricultural purposes. To the south are the marshes and swamps of Drużno. The Elbląg River has been left in a more natural state through the city, but elsewhere it is a controlled channel with branches. One of them, the Jagiellonski Channel (Kanał Jagielloński), leads to the Nogat River, along which navigation to Gdańsk is common. The Elbląg Canal (Kanał Elbląski) connecting Lake Drużno with Drwęca River and Lake Jeziorak is a popular tourist site.

Elbląg is not a deep-water port. The draft of vessels using its waterways must be no greater than 1.5 m (4 ft 11.06 in) by law. The turning area at Elbląg is 120 m (393.70 ft) diameter and a pilot is required for large vessels.[9] Deep water vessels cannot manoeuvre; in that sense, Elbląg has become a subsidiary port of Gdańsk. Traffic of smaller vessels at Elbląg is within the river and very marginal, while larger vessels cannot reach the open Baltic Sea because the channel, once built in East-Prussia to go through the peninsula, has belonged to Russia since 1945. The city features three quay complexes, movable cranes, and railways.

Ancient and recent views of Elbląg

The Old City of 1626. The view toward Lake Drużno (German: Drausen) in the south

During the Middle Ages, the Viking settlement of Truso was located on Lake Drużno, near the current site of Elbląg in historical Pogesania; the settlement burned down in the 10th century.[10] Early in the 13th century the Teutonic Knights conquered the region, built a castle, and founded Elbing on the lake, with a population mostly from Lübeck (today the lake, now much smaller, no longer reaches the city). After the defeat of the Teutonic Knights and the destruction of the castle by the inhabitants, the city successively came under the sovereignty of the Polish crown (1466), the Kingdom of Prussia (1772), and Germany (1871). Elbing was heavily damaged in World War II, and its German citizens were expelled upon the war's end. The city became part of Poland in 1945 and was repopulated with Polish citizens.

The seaport of Truso was first mentioned ca. 890 by Wulfstan of Hedeby, an Anglo-Saxon sailor, travelling on the south coast of the Baltic Sea at the behest of King Alfred the Great of England. The exact location of Truso was not known for a long time, as the seashore has significantly changed, but most historians trace the settlement inside or near to modern Elbląg on Lake Drużno. Truso was located at territory already known to the Roman Empire and earlier.

It was an important seaport serving the Vistula River bay on the early medieval Baltic Sea trade routes which led from Birka in the north to the island of Gotland and to Visby in the Baltic Sea. From there, traders continued further south to Carnuntum along the Amber Road. The ancient Amber Road led further southwest and southeast to the Black Sea and eventually to Asia. The east-west trade route went from Truso, along the Baltic Sea to Jutland, and from there inland by river to Hedeby, a large trading center in Jutland. The main goods of Truso were amber, furs, and slaves.

Archaeological finds in 1897 and diggings in the 1920s placed Truso at Gut Hansdorf. A large burial field was also found at Elbing. Recent Polish diggings have found burned beams and ashes and thousand-year-old artifacts in an area of about 20 hectares. Many of these artifacts are now displayed at the Muzeum w Elblągu.

Brick manors, built in the Neogothic style, can be seen in the outer suburbs of Elbląg

Attempts to conquer Prussian land began in 997, when Bolesław I the Brave, at the urging of the Pope, sent a contingent of soldiers and a missionary (Adalbert of Prague) to the pagan Prussians, a non-Slavic people, on a crusade of conquest and conversion. The crusade encompassed much of the Baltic Sea coast, including Danzig (present day Gdańsk), and other areas of the coast up to Sambia. Starting in 1209 additional crusades were called for by Konrad of Masovia, who mainly sought to conquer Prussian territory, rather than actually convert the indigenous Prussians. Despite heroic efforts, Old Prussian sovereignty would eventually collapse after a succession of wars instigated by Pope Honorius III and his frequent calls for crusade.

Before the Prussians and their neighbors to the west, the Pomeranians, were finally brought to heel, Polish rulers and the Duchy of Masovia, both by then Christianised peoples, would be continually frustrated in their attempts at northern expansion. Aside from minor border raids, major campaigns against the Prussians would be launched in 1219, 1220, and 1222. After a particularly sound defeat by Prussian forces in 1223, Polish forces in Chełmno, the seat of Christian of Oliva and the Duchy of Masovia, were forced onto the defensive.

In 1226 Duke Konrad I of Masovia summoned the Teutonic Knights for assistance; by 1230 they had secured Chełmno (Culm) and begun claiming conquered territories for themselves under the authority of the Holy Roman Empire, although these claims were rejected by the Poles, whose ambition had been to conquer Prussia all along. The Teutonic Order's strategy was to move down the Vistula and secure the delta, establishing a barrier between the Prussians and Danzig. The victorious Teutonic Knights built a castle at Elbing.

"All the little redoubts that they had in that place, which are said to be (list) ... and around the Drusine marsh ... he (frater Hermannus magister) assaulted and levelled by rendering them into ash, after the infidels had been killed or captured."

Truso did not disappear suddenly to be replaced with the citadel and town of Elbing during the Prussian Crusade. It had already burned down in the tenth century, with the population dispersed in the area.

"The master ... came to the region of Pogesania, to that island which is in the middle of the Elbing river, in that place where the Elbing enters the Vistula Lagoon, and built there a fort, which he called by the name of the Elbing River, in the year of the incarnation of the Lord, 1237. Others report that the same fort was attacked by the infidels and then was moved to the place where it is now situated, and the city gathered around it."

Both landings were amphibious operations conducted from the ships. The Chronicon relates that they were in use for many years and then were sunk in Lake Drusen. In 1238 the Dominican Order was invited to build a monastery on a grant of land. Pomesania was not secured, however, and from 1240-1242 the order began building a brick castle on the south side of the settlement. It may be significant that Elbing's first industry was the same as Truso's had been: manufacture of amber and bone artifacts for export. In 1243 William of Modena created the Diocese of Pomesania and three others. They were at first only ideological constructs, but the tides of time turned them into reality in that same century.

The foundation of Elbing was perhaps not the end of the Old Prussian story in the region. In 1825 a manuscript listing a vocabulary of the BalticOld Prussian language, named the Elbing-Prussian Dictionary (German: Elbing-Preußisches Wörterbuch), or more commonly in English just Elbing Vocabulary, was found among some manuscripts from a merchant's house. It contained 802 words in a dialect now termed Pomesanian with their equivalents in an early form of German.

The origin of the vocabulary remains unknown. Its format is like that of modern travel dictionaries; i.e., it may have been used by German speakers to communicate with Old Prussians, but the specific circumstances are only speculative. The manuscript became the Codex Neumannianus. It disappeared after a British bombing raid destroyed the library at Elbing but before then facsimiles had been made. The date of the MSS was estimated at ca. 1400, but it was a copy. There is no evidence concerning the provenance of the original, except that it must have been in Pomesanian.

In 1246 the town was granted a constitution under Lübeck law, used in maritime circumstances, instead of Magdeburg rights common in other cities in Central Europe. This decision of the Order was in keeping with its general strategy of espousing the trade association that in 1358 would become the Hanseatic League. The Order seized on this association early and used it to establish bases throughout the Baltic. The Order's involvement in the League was somewhat contradictory. In whatever cities they founded the ultimate authority was the commander of the town, who kept office in the citadel, typically used as a prison. Lübeck law, on the other hand, provided for self-government of the town.

Membership in the Hanseatic League meant having important trading contacts with England, Flanders, France, and the Netherlands. The city received numerous merchant privileges from the rulers of England, Poland, Pomerania, and the Teutonic Order. For instance, the privilege of the Old Town (German: Altstadt, Polish: Stare Miasto) was upgraded in 1343, while in 1393 it was granted an emporium privilege for grains, metals, and forest products.

Except for the citadel and churches, Elbing at the time was more of a small village by modern standards. Its area was 300 m × 500 m (984.25 ft × 1,640.42 ft). It featured a wharf, a marketplace and five streets, as well as a number of churches. The castle was completed in 1251. In 1288 fire destroyed the entire settlement except for the churches, which were of brick. A new circuit wall was started immediately. From 1315 to 1340 Elbląg was rebuilt. A separate settlement called New Town (German: Neustadt) was founded ca. 1337 and received Lübeck rights in 1347. In 1349 the Black Death struck the town, toward the end of the European plague. After the population recovered it continued building up the city and in 1364 a crane was built for the port.

The German-language Elbinger Rechtsbuch,[14] written in Elbing, Prussia documented among other laws for the first time Polish common law. The German-language Polish laws are based on the Sachsenspiegel[15] and were written down to aid the judges. It is thus the oldest source for documented Polish common law and is in Polish referred to as the Księga Elbląska (Book of Elbląg[16]). It was written down in the second half of the 13th century.

In 1440 several western and eastern Prussian towns formed the Prussian Confederation, which led the revolt of Prussia against the rule of the Teutonic Knights in 1454. For assistance against the Order, the Confederation asked for help from King Casimir IV of Poland; Casimir's subsequent claiming of Prussia led to the Thirteen Years' War.

From 1579 Elbing/Elbląg had close trade relations with England, to which the city accorded free trade. English, Scottish, and Irish merchants settled in the city. They formed the Scottish Reformed Church of Elbląg and became Elbing citizens, aiding Lutheran Sweden in the Thirty Years' War. The rivalry of nearby Danzig interrupted trading links several times. By 1618 Elbląg had left the Hanseatic League owing to its close business dealings with England.

Elbing industrialized under the sovereignty of the Hohenzollern kings in Berlin. In 1828 the first steamship was built by Ignatz Grunau. In 1837 Ferdinand Schichau started the Schichau-Werke company in Elbing as well as another shipyard in Danzig later on. Schichau constructed the Borussia, the first screw-vessel in Germany. Schichau-Werke built hydraulic machinery, ships, steam engines, and torpedoes. After the inauguration of the railway to Königsberg in 1853, Elbing's industry began to grow. Schichau worked together with his son-in-law Carl H. Zise, who continued the industrial complex after Schichau's death. Schichau erected large complexes for his many thousands of workers.

Georg Steenke, an engineer from Königsberg, connected Elbing near the Baltic Sea with the southern part of Prussia by building the Oberländischer Kanal (Elbląg Canal).

During the Nazi Germany era (1933–1945), three subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp were located near the town: Elbing, Elbing (Org. Todt), and Elbing (Schinau). These were closed and many of the German inhabitants of Elbing forced to flee as the SovietRed Army approached the city toward the end of World War II (see Evacuation of East Prussia). Laid under siege since January 23, 1945,about 65% of the city infrastructure[18] was destroyed, including most of the historical city center. The town was captured by the Soviet Red Army during the night of February 9/10, 1945.[19] During the first days of the siege most of the population of approximately 100,000 persons fled. After the end of war, in spring 1945, the region together with the town of Elbing became part of Poland as a result of the Potsdam Conference.

Almost all Germans who remained or returned were expelled by the communist regime during the following months. The city was settled with Poles from the Eastern Borderlands, which were annexed by the Soviet Union.

After the expulsion of most of the German population, the city was repopulated and given the Polish name Elbląg. Of the new inhabitants, 98% were Poles expelled from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union, or Polish peasants from central Poland. Parts of the damaged historical city center were completely demolished, with the bricks being used to rebuild Warsaw and Gdańsk. The Communist authorities had originally planned that the Old Town, utterly destroyed during the fighting since January 23, 1945, would be built over with blocks of flats; however, economic difficulties thwarted this effort. Two churches were reconstructed and the remaining ruins of the old town were torn down in the 1960s.

Along with Tricity and Szczecin, Elbląg was the scene of rioting in the coastal cities in 1970 (see also Polish 1970 protests). Since 1990 the German minority population has had a modest resurgence, with the Elbinger Deutsche Minderheit Organization counting around 450 members in 2000.

Restoration of the Old Town began after 1989. Since the beginning of the restoration, an extensive archaeological programme has been carried out. Most of the city's heritage was destroyed during the construction of basements in the 19th century or during World War II, but the backyards and latrines of the houses remained largely unchanged, and have provided information on the city's history. In some instances, private investors have incorporated parts of preserved stonework into new architecture. By 2006, approximately 75% of the Old Town had been reconstructed. The city museum presents many pieces of art and items of everyday use, including the only 15th century binoculars preserved in Europe.

Until World War II there were many Gothic, renaissance and baroque houses in Elbląg's Old Town; some of them are reconstructed. Other preserved buildings are:

St. Nicholas Cathedral - a monumental 13th-century Gothic church (cathedral only from 1992, before it was a parochial church), destroyed by fire in the late 18th century, then damaged in World War II and repaired

city gate (Brama Targowa) - erected in 1319

St. Mary's Church - former Dominican church, erected in the 13th century, rebuilt in the 14th and 16th centuries; damaged in World War II and reconstructed in 1961 as an art gallery; remnants of cloister are partially preserved